Explor ing I mpact of Consumer and Pr oduct Char acter istics on E-CommerceAdoption: A Study of Consumer s in I ndia

Sanjay K . Jain Delhi School of Economics, Delhi M anika Jain ARSD College, Delhi
Abstr act The paper aims at examining theimpact of various consumer and product characteristics on adoption of e-commerce among consumers in India. The study is based on primary data collected through survey of consumers residing in and around Delhi. A structurednon-disguised questionnaire has been employed for collecting the information from the respondents about their demographics, shopping orientations, security and privacy concerns, technological familiarity, past online shopping experiences and intentions to buy various typesof products through internet in future. Past online shopping satisfaction, recreational shopping orientation, education and income emerge as significant factors affecting consumer past online purchases. In respect of future onlineshopping intentions, only three consumer related factors viz., past online shopping satisfaction, past online shopping frequency and education, are found as significant predictors. Amongst product characteristics, product expensiveness is found to be negatively related to consumer future online purchase intentions. While consumers appear quite willing to buy services onlinethat are high in their intangible value proposition, they appear somewhat ambivalent in their intentionsto buy online the'frequently purchased products'. Some of the consumer and product characteristics do influence consumer adoption of e-commerce. Study findings entail interesting implications for the marketers. They need to give adequate attention to consumer and product characteristics while designing their e-marketing strategies. As compared to goods, the surveyed respondents have expressed greater willingness to buy services online in future. Services thus appear to be more promising product category for sale through internet channel in future.

I NT RODUCT I ON

arketing as a business function has witnessed several changes during the last three decades. One key change relates to adoption of internet technology for carrying out marketing and business functions. With more and more customers opting for online transactions, traditional brick and mortar retail formats have started giving way to emergence of virtual stores that exist in the cyberspace and offer merchandise and services through an electronic channel to their customers with a fraction of the overhead required in a brick-and mortar retail store (Chen

Journal of Technology Management for Growing Economies Vol. 2 No. 2 October 2011 pp. 35-64

2011 by Chitkara University. All Rights Reserved.

Jain, S.K. Jain, M.

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et al., 2004). India is no exception to the phenomenal growth of e-commerce. Business firms have started increasingly embracing e-commerce technologies and the internet in the country. Even though internet usage is not that wide spread in India as is the case with many other countries, ecommerce sites have fast come up everywhere to sell everything from groceries to bakery products, books and computers (Asia Today, 1999). Growing popularity of e-commerce as a means of marketing goods and services to the consumers has drawn considerableattention of researchers in the past few years. A wide array of issues relating to e-commerce adoption among the business firms (e.g., Premkumar et al., 1994; Iacovou et al., 1995; Igbaria et al., 1997; Min and Galle, 1999; Grewal et al., 2001; Chong, 2004; Joo and Kim, 2004; Kaynak et al., 2005; Alam et al., 2007; Bakker et al., 2008) and consumers (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1996; Alba et al., 1997; Li et al., 1999; Swaminathan et al., 1999; Tan and Teo, 2000; Lee et al., 2001; Lynch and Beck, 2001; Li and Zhang, 2002; Cheung et al., 2003; Heijden, 2003; Koyuncu and Lien, 2003; Lim, 2003; Park and Jun, 2003; Su, 2003; Yoh et al., 2003; Chen et al. 2004; Constantinides, 2004; Dillon and Reif, 2004; Monsuw et al., 2004; Yang, 2005; Ghazali et al., 2006; Lee, 2006; Liao et al., 2006; Lopes and Dennis, 2006; Richards and Shen, 2006) have been examined in the past. Identification of consumer and product related characteristics that affect e-commerce adoption among consumers has been a thrust area of past researches (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1996; Alba et al., 1997; Peterson et al., 1997; Li et al., 1999; Swaminathan et al., 1999; Phau & Sui, 2000; Lynch and Beck, 2001; Li and Zhang, 2002; Cheung et al., 2003; Koyuncu and Lien, 2003; Lim, 2003; Park and Jun, 2003; Su, 2003; Yoh et al., 2003; Dillon and Reif, 2004; Monsuw et al., 2004; Yang, 2005; Ghazali et al., 2006; Richards and Shen, 2006). Despite growing popularity of e-commerce in the country, it is disconcerting that not much empirical work has been done in the field in India. In the absence of such studies and authentic information about the characteristics and behaviour of e-shoppers, it is difficult for the e-marketers to correctly identify the target customers and design appropriate marketing mix strategies. The present study aims at filling this gap. More specifically, the study aims at an empirical examination of the impact of consumer and product characteristics on e-commerce adoption among consumers in India. The paper is organised around five
Journal of Technology Management for Growing Economies, Volume 2, Number 2, October 2011